While some consumer-related data was better than expected, both existing and new home sales were weaker than expected.

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The City currently stores and manages some data in a cloud solution, such as the Chicago Department of Aviation's data related to airline billing and building plan information as part of the Department of Buildings' E-Plan review system.

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"I think it augurs some serious new - and useful - approaches to sifting through massive amounts of related data, " he said.

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It even looks like you can see some confusion in the inventory data from April-10 to Sep-10, presumably related to the extension of the credit.

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